Is the media at fault for President Trump’s poor approval ratings?

President Trump is nearing the end of his first year in office and his poll numbers are at record lows for a president at this point in his term. A recent CNN poll has the president at 35 percent approval, his lowest marks to date, in contrast to other presidents who have not been below 49 at this point in their terms. White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders told the White House press corps, covered by the Washington Post, the reason she thought his numbers were so low:

“While the president and this administration has been very focused on how we can better help the American people, I think often times the media is focused on other things. Certainly not talking about the growing economy, certainly not talking about the crushing of ISIS, not talking about the creation of jobs. If you look at the amount of time that is spent on negative coverage of this president, 90 percent of the coverage is negative about this president when, as you said, I listed off a number of things that have been pretty historic in nature in this first year. If people were focused on a lot more of those things in the media, I think his numbers would be a lot higher.”

The media has given a lot of coverage to the president’s accomplishments, but they have also spent a lot of time on his problems. This raises the question, is the media responsible for the president’s poor approval ratings?

The Issue

Is the media responsible for the president’s poor approval ratings? Has the media’s coverage been negative and one-sided? Or, are the president’s behavior and policies what have caused his poor numbers?

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